I know what you're trying to say and I agree with you in principle, but I want to call you out for this line...
The judge and MPAA can say a dog has 5 legs all they want, but the dog still has only 4, DeCSS is not a violation of any law.
The MPAA can say the sky is orange and we can all ignore them. But when the old folks in the robes say something, even stupid things, it matters. In America we have a long and complicated process to review legal rulings so that no one judge or even one court can decide something by themselves. But a judges job description basically say, "given these laws and this constitution and these case facts, decide what's legal and what's not." If we don't agree with that ruling, we have options like writing/calling/stalking our congrespeople. And after that, civil disobedience is in the arsenal if you have the guts. But ignoring a ruling and deciding something is legal because you believe it won't fly.
Every night, I kneel down at the foot of my bed and pray, "God bless Mommy, and Daddy, and can I please run Fortune on my Cisco router." Prayers do get answered.
I would like to add to my previous post and basically retract it. I was not directly involved in the project mentioned above and was basing my statements on bad information and recollections. I was under the impression that the project had completely tanked and was over with. I was wrong. I would like to apologize to Rose-Hullman and anyone involved for any false implications.
The small company I work for tried this a few months ago. We got a grant from the state that was supposed to boost "corporate and academic cooperation" or some crap. My company is in Indianapolis and chose Rose Hullman to outsource a fairly large but not too difficult development project.
It was a complete nightmare. We spent months designing the project, teaching them our somewhat odd database structure, and laying out exactly what they needed to do. That was about 9 months ago and they have provided us with are excuses. Maybe it was because we worked with college kids, but we were paying them a fairly good chunk of change. It's not like we had a major "culture clash", the average age in my department is about 23.
After that, I would say that any project that needs to be done properly and on time, should be done in house.
Phone companies have offered free long distance to people that show them new ways to steal long distance service. In this case, they figure that once they know how it's being done, they can keep anyone else from doing it. The people that they're giving free service to were getting free service anyway, so it's no loss to the phone company.
Having said that, this story smells funny to me.
I would think that the number of people who *didn't* buy the product would be very important. You could make a graph showing "50% of the people shown price X bought the product, 35% of the people shown price Y bought it, and 75% of the people shown price Z bought it." If an unknown number of people visit the site with no intention of buying anything, it throws those numbers off. If you don't record the non-buyers, all you can say is "30% of the people who bought the product paid price X, 25% paid price Y, and 45% paid price Z." I havn't taken econ since high school, but the first one seems much more valuable to me.
Idea:
If a bunch of people went and viewed the pages for popular books that were released this week, where the prices were still being tested, then left without buying anything, it could screw up the calculations nicely. Anyone know where I can find a couple million people?
I think Tom did the exact right thing. Kyle Bennett from HardOCP sent his CPU back, they returned what they said was the same chip, basically saying "we don't see anything wrong". Mysteriously, the returned CPU performed much better than it did before. Tom had made so much noise (and deservedly so), that he HAD to keep his proof or he could have gotten burned so hard.
Let's say that both Kyle and Tom returned their chips, had them switched with working ones, and Intel then fixes the problem quietly without a public recall (which could be easily done considering how few are really out there). Tom then looks like a total idiot who can't test a computer and Intel buys their way out of a huge mistake.
Tom, if you're reading this, you're awesome. Keep up the damn fine work.
Corporations are creating this strange new form of nationalism.
Nationalism is earned by civic pride, good leadership, and all sorts of intangible things. Modern corporations, and Intel in particular, and buying mindshare with cold hard cash. Someone jump in with Intel's 2000 advertising budget. My guess is about 150 million bucks.
People ask me computer questions all the time (I'm sure most of you can relate) and when asked what kind of computer they have, most of the time the response is "*something* megahertz Intel". That's the kind of massive mindshare they have and that's why the "megahertz race" is so important to them.
I'll end with an anecdote: Five minutes after the head of the studio (I forget which one) saw the film Godzilla, he doubled the advertising budget. He knew that the film and word of mouth weren't going to put people in the seats, and tons of advertising would have to make up for it. Godzilla actually made money, entirely due to that advertising.
I remember watching the first press conference from Transmeta (where Linus and Dave Taylor played Quake) and the "benchmarks" they were spouting. The Slashdot response was pretty evenly divided between "I want one tomorrow" and "what was up with those bullshit benchmarks?".
Citrix has a product called NFuse which allows you to use a web browser. They have a pretty cool demo where you can run MS Excel in your broswer window. NFuse is free, but everything else from Citrix is insanely expensive.
This can't be the first time that some engineer invented something illegal/troublesome on company time. Any lawyer worth his wingtips would put a clause on there saying, "Anything you invent while employed by us, including those great ideas you have while driving in rush hour and in the shower, are owned entirely by us...unless we don't want it, then it's all yours." But good call, though. If AOL didn't have that kind of language in there, they may well get screwed.
When ice forms, it makes rings out of the water molecules, which makes it less dense than liquid water. I think...I've done a lot of drugs since high school chemistry.
From what I've read, Melinda was a development manager, not a secretary.
Never mind the fact that Linus' wife could beat the snot out of him if he ever touched another woman.
The judge was NOT a consultant for the MPAA. A lawfirm he was somehow associated with employed some lawyers who did some consulting for the MPAA. I was furious when I first read that, but after some research I found out that it really wasn't a big deal.
Did judge Kaplan miss the point? Yeah. Was he biased? No.
Of course you're right about the IOC needing to finance themselves and the Olypics costing a lot of money, but over the last few years, the IOC have shown themselves to be such money grubbing whores that it's hard to take them seriously when they say all these altruistic things about "tradition".
I work with Windows machines every day and adding many applications over several months with KILL the performance of a Windows box. I've gotten calls from people who think thier computers are broken and all I've needed to do is remove 25 ancient applications they didn't even know they had. I'll bet that 10 million people have MS Money installed on thier computers and don't know that it exists, much less what it does or how to use it. Another thing that will kill your performance is the tendancy of programs like Office and AOL to launch at startup.
Slashdot Mirror
That would be "The Athlon has a 200MHz system bus."
-B
When I can see a protocol on a giant wooden spool, I'll agree with you.
-B
My sig is
1) The first good short movie quote I thought of.
2) A statement about the seperation of power and morality in the modern world.
-B
The judge and MPAA can say a dog has 5 legs all they want, but the dog still has only 4, DeCSS is not a violation of any law.
The MPAA can say the sky is orange and we can all ignore them. But when the old folks in the robes say something, even stupid things, it matters. In America we have a long and complicated process to review legal rulings so that no one judge or even one court can decide something by themselves. But a judges job description basically say, "given these laws and this constitution and these case facts, decide what's legal and what's not." If we don't agree with that ruling, we have options like writing/calling/stalking our congrespeople. And after that, civil disobedience is in the arsenal if you have the guts. But ignoring a ruling and deciding something is legal because you believe it won't fly.
-B
Every night, I kneel down at the foot of my bed and pray, "God bless Mommy, and Daddy, and can I please run Fortune on my Cisco router." Prayers do get answered.
-B
I would like to add to my previous post and basically retract it. I was not directly involved in the project mentioned above and was basing my statements on bad information and recollections. I was under the impression that the project had completely tanked and was over with. I was wrong. I would like to apologize to Rose-Hullman and anyone involved for any false implications.
-B
The small company I work for tried this a few months ago. We got a grant from the state that was supposed to boost "corporate and academic cooperation" or some crap. My company is in Indianapolis and chose Rose Hullman to outsource a fairly large but not too difficult development project.
It was a complete nightmare. We spent months designing the project, teaching them our somewhat odd database structure, and laying out exactly what they needed to do. That was about 9 months ago and they have provided us with are excuses. Maybe it was because we worked with college kids, but we were paying them a fairly good chunk of change. It's not like we had a major "culture clash", the average age in my department is about 23.
After that, I would say that any project that needs to be done properly and on time, should be done in house.
-B
Phone companies have offered free long distance to people that show them new ways to steal long distance service. In this case, they figure that once they know how it's being done, they can keep anyone else from doing it. The people that they're giving free service to were getting free service anyway, so it's no loss to the phone company.
Having said that, this story smells funny to me.
-B
I would think that the number of people who *didn't* buy the product would be very important. You could make a graph showing "50% of the people shown price X bought the product, 35% of the people shown price Y bought it, and 75% of the people shown price Z bought it." If an unknown number of people visit the site with no intention of buying anything, it throws those numbers off. If you don't record the non-buyers, all you can say is "30% of the people who bought the product paid price X, 25% paid price Y, and 45% paid price Z." I havn't taken econ since high school, but the first one seems much more valuable to me.
-B
Idea:
If a bunch of people went and viewed the pages for popular books that were released this week, where the prices were still being tested, then left without buying anything, it could screw up the calculations nicely. Anyone know where I can find a couple million people?
-B
Crack is considerably less expensive than Starbucks. Tastes better, too.
-B
I think Tom did the exact right thing. Kyle Bennett from HardOCP sent his CPU back, they returned what they said was the same chip, basically saying "we don't see anything wrong". Mysteriously, the returned CPU performed much better than it did before. Tom had made so much noise (and deservedly so), that he HAD to keep his proof or he could have gotten burned so hard.
Let's say that both Kyle and Tom returned their chips, had them switched with working ones, and Intel then fixes the problem quietly without a public recall (which could be easily done considering how few are really out there). Tom then looks like a total idiot who can't test a computer and Intel buys their way out of a huge mistake.
Tom, if you're reading this, you're awesome. Keep up the damn fine work.
-B
Nationalism is earned by civic pride, good leadership, and all sorts of intangible things. Modern corporations, and Intel in particular, and buying mindshare with cold hard cash. Someone jump in with Intel's 2000 advertising budget. My guess is about 150 million bucks.
People ask me computer questions all the time (I'm sure most of you can relate) and when asked what kind of computer they have, most of the time the response is "*something* megahertz Intel". That's the kind of massive mindshare they have and that's why the "megahertz race" is so important to them.
I'll end with an anecdote: Five minutes after the head of the studio (I forget which one) saw the film Godzilla, he doubled the advertising budget. He knew that the film and word of mouth weren't going to put people in the seats, and tons of advertising would have to make up for it. Godzilla actually made money, entirely due to that advertising.
-B
Wait...you can have sex without giving them money, cocaine, and diamonds? Shit...I've been doing it wrong.
-B
I remember watching the first press conference from Transmeta (where Linus and Dave Taylor played Quake) and the "benchmarks" they were spouting. The Slashdot response was pretty evenly divided between "I want one tomorrow" and "what was up with those bullshit benchmarks?".
-B
Citrix has a product called NFuse which allows you to use a web browser. They have a pretty cool demo where you can run MS Excel in your broswer window. NFuse is free, but everything else from Citrix is insanely expensive.
-B
This can't be the first time that some engineer invented something illegal/troublesome on company time. Any lawyer worth his wingtips would put a clause on there saying, "Anything you invent while employed by us, including those great ideas you have while driving in rush hour and in the shower, are owned entirely by us...unless we don't want it, then it's all yours." But good call, though. If AOL didn't have that kind of language in there, they may well get screwed.
-B
When ice forms, it makes rings out of the water molecules, which makes it less dense than liquid water. I think...I've done a lot of drugs since high school chemistry.
-B
busy desk, busy mind.
-B
From what I've read, Melinda was a development manager, not a secretary.
Never mind the fact that Linus' wife could beat the snot out of him if he ever touched another woman.
-B
They could save money by printing thier stock certificates on the back of DrKoop.com certificates.
-B
The judge was NOT a consultant for the MPAA. A lawfirm he was somehow associated with employed some lawyers who did some consulting for the MPAA. I was furious when I first read that, but after some research I found out that it really wasn't a big deal.
Did judge Kaplan miss the point? Yeah. Was he biased? No.
-B
Of course you're right about the IOC needing to finance themselves and the Olypics costing a lot of money, but over the last few years, the IOC have shown themselves to be such money grubbing whores that it's hard to take them seriously when they say all these altruistic things about "tradition".
-B
When has there ever been something not true on the internet? Come on, if you can't believe everything on Slashdot, what the hell can you believe?
-B
I work with Windows machines every day and adding many applications over several months with KILL the performance of a Windows box. I've gotten calls from people who think thier computers are broken and all I've needed to do is remove 25 ancient applications they didn't even know they had. I'll bet that 10 million people have MS Money installed on thier computers and don't know that it exists, much less what it does or how to use it. Another thing that will kill your performance is the tendancy of programs like Office and AOL to launch at startup.
-B